INDONESIA: Visiting Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende meets Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono

Record ID: 850642

  • Title: INDONESIA: Visiting Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende meets Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
  • Date: 7th April 2006
  • Summary: VISITING DUTCH PRIME MINISTER, JAN PETER BALKENENDE, SHAKING HANDS WITH INDONESIAN PRESIDENT SUSILO BAMBANG YUDHOYONO (2 SHOTS) CAMERAMEN WIDE VIEW OF BILATERAL MEETINGS DUTCH DELEGATES (2 SHOTS) WIDE VIEW OF INDONESIAN DELEGATES CLOSEUP OF SUSILO BAMBANG YUDHOYONO WIDE VIEW OF MEETING JAN PETER BALKENENDE AND SUSILO BAMBANG YUDHOYONO ENTERING PRESS CONFERENCE INDONESIAN M
  • Embargoed: 22nd April 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Indonesia
  • City:
  • Country: Indonesia
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA4V2NQXTIQT9P6YYZOOV89YYML
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende met with Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Saturday (April 8) during his two-day visit to the country.
    The two leaders held official bilateral talks aimed at improving political, security, and economic ties between their countries.
    Balkenende's visit followed recent visits by U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to the world's most populous Muslim country in a bid to promote Indonesia as a voice of moderate Islam.
    "People suffered because of the attacks in Bali, as well as people suffered in Europe because of the events in Madrid and London. We live in another world. And a lot of terrorism is the world in which we live. And if you want to counter terrorism, we need each other. We will strengthen our ties, we will work together. We will share information just to work on a safer world," Balkenende said.
    "We also talked about the inter-faith dialogue. Mr President, I really appreciate it that you put this important issue on the agenda. I'm convinced that religion will play an important role in the 21st century, and therefore, it is important that there is an inter-faith and inter-cultural dialogue on the global scale, on the national scale, and on the local scale," Balkenende added during a joint press conference with Yudhoyono.
    Balkenende had earlier met on Friday (April 7) with Indonesia's top Muslim leaders to discuss ways to improve inter-faith dialogue and co-operation in countering terrorism.
    He also delivered a lecture on inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue at Jakarta's State Islamic University.
    Yudhoyono, at the same conference, reaffirmed support by the Netherlands of Indonesia's territorial sovereignty over troubled Papua province.
    The Netherlands was the colonial ruler of the region, west of Papua island, before the territory was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969.
    Last month, Australia gave 42 Papuan asylum seekers temporary protection visas after they sailed from their homeland in a traditional boat with a banner accusing Indonesia of genocide.
    Jakarta denies such charges and believes Canberra acceptance of the Papuans as giving credence to their claims of ill-treatment and as support for Papuan independence.
    "Our policy on Papua is quite clear. That by adopting special autonomy status, special autonomy laws, then our task is to implement those laws and to solve the problems in Papua peacefully and constitutionally. And of course we have to do more in promoting the welfare of the people of Papua," said Yudhoyono.
    A 2001 legislation gives Papua more share of revenues from its rich mineral and natural resources and more freedom in running its own affairs, including having a special council for indigenous tribal leaders to address local grievances.
    Indigenous activists in that area, currently known as Indonesia's West Irian Jaya and Papua provinces, have campaigned for independence since the inclusion while a low-level rebellion has also simmered there.
    Lying at the eastern end of the huge archipelago, the vast area was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 under a U.N.-backed vote by community leaders after Jakarta took over the province from Dutch colonial rule in 1963.
    Many rights group consider the U.N. vote process a sham.
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